Poem – Hair

My hair is curly and frizzy and mostly unkempt
I run a comb through it and try to be orderly
My hair is black and white, brittle
taken to the scorching sun and the blood flowing in me
I refuse to change it, will let it be
For this is who I am, withered by age and destiny!

I see braids and locks and baldness around
I see beauty and pain in unsaid stories about them
I refuse to belong, I refuse to look like how you want me to be
I belong to this earth, like the rebels before me
For my hair is me and I’m my hair
and it carries the story of my past and present and the future to be!